Redefinition
by Missy Jade
Summary: SarkSydney, JackIrina ' In the end, when the lies come apart, the truth is only a matter of perception.... ' Sarkcentric, Ensemble
1. Chapter 1

_Title: Redefinition  
Rating: Mature (violence, language, disturbing imagery, sexual content)  
Pairings: Sark/Sydney, Jack/Irina; hints of Vaughn/Sydney, others planned but not announced  
Characters: Think clowns in a clown car, from a bunch of the CIA to a ton of the "baddies"  
Beta: The amazing **gidgetzb**, who puts up with my crazy and keeps my plots from eating me alive, yo.  
Spoilers: S1, S2; basic plot of S3, through S4 and up to and including certain aspects of S5  
Timeline: Canon up to Sydney passing out after her fight with Allison  
Disclaimer: Dude, if Alias was mine, we wouldn't have gotten that shit S5, trust me. _

_Notes: In season four, we saw a photo that hinted that, just maybe, there was once another baby Derevko, Irina's baby niece. That went nowhere in the show but it's essentially the hinge on which this fic works itself out. Going into AU land as of the Sydney and Allison fight at the end of season 3, it's primarily centered around Sark and through Sark those he's most connected to, both negatively and positively. As you can guess, Irina and Sydney play a massive role, as well as their collective family on both sides of the spy spectrum. Why? Because there were way too many dropped plot lines in regards to Sark and Irina (and everyone else that has a main role in here) that would have been awesome with a light drizzle of awesomesauce on top and because I'm an obsessive little plot fiend that loves interconnected storylines in big ass fics. And because Irina is so fantastically morally gray that she deserved more than how JJ ended her story in S5. And so did poor I-am-the-king-of-wasted-potential Sark. And so did poor JJ-didn't-even-know-what-to-do-with-my-awesomeness Jack. And so did poor got-her-badass-Derevko-self-owned-by-a-glass-table Nadia. And so did poor I'm-a-Bristow-and-a-Derevko-but-all-I'm-going-to-do-is-wahwah-over-Vaughn Sydney. And, yes, even poor I-could-have-been-cool-but-JJ-wuvs-his-Syd/Vaugh-and-ended-up-sacrificing-us-both-for-it Vaughn deserved better. So, by now, y'all get where I'm going with this, right?_

_Teaser: In the end, when the lies come apart, the truth is only a matter of perception._

* * *

**Prologue**

_It had all come apart at the seams._

_Sydney had known it would, had prepared herself for it, but it still pissed her off._

_Left her panicked, frantic, scrambling to make sure it fit together right._

_It was small comfort that Sark was no doubt just as pissed off._

_Gunshots rang out through the tunnels, shouts echoed after her as she ran, searching for any flash of blonde hair, any hint of an accent in the noise._

_The CIA was coming in._

_It was beyond surreal, to feel both proud and frustrated at the same time._

_The concrete by her head exploded and she jerked back around the corner, blinking the dust out of her eyes as the shots kept coming._

_The ground beneath her feet shivered as the barrage ended and she peeked out, a quick glance that showed the hallway empty. She held her breath and listened, could hear the aggravated cursing, the other woman running again._

_The disc was gone, safe— the only thing that had gone right._

_Somewhere close, there was a blast, the ground not shivering but shuddering._

_Back up plans to cut off the C level, she remembered her mother telling her so many long days before, and knew she had just won an extra few minutes. She took a breath and let it out, gun at the ready as she followed, moving faster as she heard the unmistakable sound of metal against metal._

_Another corner and Sydney caught sight of her, frozen in the act of pushing open a door._

_Lauren Reed stared back at her, face flushed, her once-white blouse bloodied and torn._

_They stared at each other for a heartbeat, gunshots dim above them; Sydney had thought the anger had weakened but she'd been wrong. It flooded back, rose up and left her breathless, realizing with shocking clarity just how helpless Lauren was in this moment, abandoned by her superiors._

_Once it would have made her hesitate._

_Now it made her move faster, swinging her gun up as Lauren's face blanched, finger twitching as she pushed against the door in a last desperate attempt to survive, stained fingers splayed flat against the door—_

_But Sydney didn't fire off the shot that reverberated through the tunnel._

_Burning pain exploded in her back, threw her forward to the ground breathless, vision flickering as she struggled to get an arm under her enough to turn herself over, watching as her gun was kicked away._

_A foot flipped her over and she swallowed as her vision cleared, jerked in a harsh breath as she gazed up at him, the older man with the hardened face and the impossibly familiar features. "Go," he ordered, tilting his head to the side, and she realized he was speaking to Lauren, was helping Lauren escape as he pressed his boot hard against her chest, agony blazing in her back at the pressure._

_The thought of Lauren Reed surviving was worse than anything else, let the fury to rise up again._

_"I really can't let you go," he said softly, eyes soft with something almost paternal, but Sydney ignored him, blinking away hot tears of frustration as she twisted her head enough to see Lauren's feet vanish. "You're so obsessed with Reed," he noted, twisting the heel of his boot into her._

_If she could spit at him, she would._

_As it was, she was helpless, cataloguing everything she could in the seconds she had._

_The disc was gone but Sark could handle it, had learned enough from her mother to keep control of it all._

_She absently hoped he'd take enough time to kill the bitch after everything else was done._

_Then knew with complete clarity that he would, would make sure everything was repaid._

_He was better with long-term plans than she was._

_"I wish it was different," he told her gently, the corners of his mouth creasing slightly in what she was sickeningly sure was true sincerity. "You were so good for my son, and you would have been a wonderful mother to my grandchildren if you two ever decided to settle down—"_

_"Just shoot me already..."_

_The softness left his face, his eyes hardening as he leveled the Glock at her, flashed that horribly familiar grin as he put more of his weight onto her, crushing the breath out of her lungs and making spots dance before her eyes. "Okay."_

_A single shot ringing through the tunnel, a jerk in the body under his foot as the CIA pushed their way into her mother's last stronghold, Vaughn leading the charge._

_And Lauren Reed, bloodied and bruised, escaped from it all._

* * *

_Seventeen Months Earlier_

Her prison was small, compact, had a door she couldn't figure out, and a mattress in the corner.

The walls were cement, the ceiling was too high, and the blankets didn't do enough to keep her warm.

Air vents that were too small and too high to be used, and fluorescent lights set into the ceiling.

Except for the irregular visits by strangers for questioning (don't think about it) she was completely alone.

When she woke up this time (measuring time was impossible) there was a crack in the wall.

It wasn't the same wall.

But everything else looked the same, felt the same.

She'd been moved, she was sure of it. It would explain why she'd slept so heavily, but it was a lot of work to go through, to make her new cell an exact copy of her old one.

They were fucking with her head, she was sure of it.

Sydney had never been comfortable with swearing, had always felt awkward when she had, as if she didn't know how to do it right and would only make the words a joke.

Even now, as an adult and a professional, she still wasn't comfortable with verbal vulgarity.

But they were _fucking_ with her.

It ignited anger inside, muted but steady, anger that she fed as she ran her fingers along the crack in some futile hope that it could lead to escape. She thought of Sloane and Danny, her father never really being there, and her mother falling backwards off a building. She only thought more furiously of old wounds when she realized the crack meant nothing, was just a further way to make her unbalanced.

Breathing heavily, she moved back to her mattress, slid down and glared up at the crack. Swiped at moisture in her eyes a few minutes later, shifted her glare down to her damp hand as she realized slowly that she was beginning to cry.

There was no lock to pick, no guards to disarm, nothing to do except sit here.

Sit here and wait for them to come get her, to question her more.

Questions that didn't even make sense, and were ridiculous.

They listed off strings of queries about fairytales and children's stories, prodded her relentlessly about Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb. Asked her the questions as if she was supposed to have them all memorized, as if she'd been raised by parents who sat around all day and read them to her.

She closed her eyes and stretched out, taking slow breaths to stay calm.

Patience had never been her strength, was something she could accomplish but not without a lot of work.

She wished she were more patient as she measured her captivity through counting the minutes she spent awake.

Her previous wounds, the ones inflicted by the woman who had worn Francie's face and died with it, had healed— a few months she'd been here, at least. There was no sunlight and no clean air, no change in the temperature around her. The guards who handled her care were constantly rotated but one man popped up periodically, an older man who watched her carefully when he sat in during the interrogations.

Wherever she was, he was in charge, gave orders without hesitation, eyed her the way someone would eye a trophy.

She missed Vaughn, a constant stab of pain as she breathed, and she thought of Will with an ache behind her eyes;, images flickering far back in her thoughts, her life that was gone and would never be again.

Even if she escaped, survived, it would never be the same.

Sydney suspected that she was losing her mind, the way her thoughts were starting to fragment and break apart.

When she slept, she dreamed of her father giving her orders that she carried out while he watched with his heart in his eyes, looking at someone behind her guiltily. Sometimes, though more rarely, she dreamed of her mother, stretched out beside her in the bed from her childhood, fingers brushing her hair from her eyes tenderly, pressing slow kisses to her forehead.

And sometimes she dreamed she was Little Red Riding Hood, gripping her basket to her chest protectively, trying to ignore the wolf whispering in her ear and trying to lure her off the beaten path.

* * *

It had been five months, since Sark had been placed in Irina's old cell.

Irina had told him that if they ever caught him, he'd be stuck behind the glass wall where they could interrogate him whenever they wanted. Because of this, she'd told him to memorize every aspect of it, sketched everything she remembered down to the way the walls looked and tested him on it, leaving him feeling like a child in class.

But that was what life with Irina was like, even now that he was an adult and worked for others as well.

Irina taught and he learned, listened and watched.

She'd been right— he received her cell after she sold him out to the CIA, allowed him to betray Sloane.

No wonder she'd been so sure that he would be caught.

But the infamous cell, he quickly decided, was devastatingly boring.

Within a month, he would have killed for a rubber ball.

Three walls and glass that stretched before him, offered him only blankness and shadows, nothing to amuse himself with except for what his mind could conjure. The cot was still firmly attached to the wall, with only a weak mattress providing comfort for his back. There were no books, not even a damn deck of cards, and the only human contact he had were the officers who came to get him for the bi-weekly questioning sessions.

Still, the questioning was… interesting, to say the least.

Provided him with new parts to the puzzle he'd decided to focus on, knowledge he gained in bits and pieces.

Sydney Bristow had been killed in the fight with Allison.

It wasn't a surprise, by itself.

Allison had always been disturbingly single-minded when it came to her work.

But so many people greater than Irina had been careful to keep her alive until she could be used, so many powerful people were obsessed with her, had plans for her.

It was too perfect, death and then fire, and besides, he had been a dead man for quite a few years, hadn't he?

Now, months later, his puzzle was a far more interesting picture than the three walls and the glass, than the food he got every morning, was something to focus on to keep from becoming a ghost.

Irina had taught him this, to focus to keep from coming undone.

Hard to do, to not become abstract through it, but it worked if one knew how to do it. How not to succumb to the weaknesses inherent in the method— it worked for him, and his mind continued to function.

Every night, in the moments before he slept, he remembered stories from when he had been young.

Remembered when Irina had told him the stories, settling at his side for hours when she was sure things were calm around them— her words shifting easily between languages and voices, her hands moving slightly, fingers dancing through the stories, silly tales that had kept him calm in the chaos.

Remembered what the lessons had taught him.

Irina's final orders before she had vanished had been basic, unwavering, so Sark went against his nature, went against instincts she herself had drilled into him, and waited in the little cell where they kept him.

Besides, he knew Irina would get a good laugh at exactly _how_ he had stayed sane during his captivity.


	2. Chapter 2

_Notes: Last semi-short update in here, rest are all going to be on the longer side. Just consider it a warning, especially with some of the updates that are going to be posted._

-

**One**

-

Jack Bristow had not become the agent he was overnight.

Some of it was natural instinct, instinct that he saw reflected in Sydney more and more as the years ticked by, but it went deeper than that. It was a simple truth that he was only so capable because his Laura had betrayed him, had broken the man he had been and allowed him to become something else, to become someone capable of doing what had to be done.

Laura's betrayal had allowed him to become someone who could handle Irina Derevko.

So he could admit, if only privately, that it was fitting that she was the only one he could depend on now.

It took two weeks to track her down after the memorial, another two weeks before she'd made contact, voice strained through the connection, strained but still somehow emotionless in a way that he envied. Laura had always been warm, slow-smiled and sophisticated certainly, but still warm, so it threw him even years later, to see that smile looking so cold.

He'd suspected but he hadn't dared to hold his breath until she'd told him what she knew quietly, vague information that had filtered to her through countless contacts and estranged family members.

Sydney.

She was gone, hidden, but she was alive.

Jack could work with alive.

Four months he'd been doing this, struggling to keep the information he had managed to dig up in line— a rare phone call when she got close but usually just the relay chat, typed words that skittered across his screen and held his heart hostage. Felt oddly relieved when Irina became angry with him, swore at him through rapid lines of text, promising him that she was as undone and dedicated in this as he was.

He had betrayed his private loyalties countless times for Sydney, was prepared to do it again— he was her _father_.

But it wasn't just Sydney.

It was Sloane handing himself over.

It was the fact that he couldn't trust the CIA, that he trusted Irina when she _said_ he couldn't.

It was Teresa Derevko suddenly coming back from the dead after two years dead.

Jack had files on Irina's family in Russia, his own private obsession that no one else had ever found. Irina's mother and father, long dead and brilliant in their own right, who had sacrificed so much to give their two children everything they could have wanted. He had only vague information about her older sister, too little to be comfortable, only a few pictures of a woman with dark hair and strong features, a hard face that he was unsure about.

The niece that he had been sure for years was a lie, tall and dark-haired by the time he had proof that she was real, a perfect blending of Elena and her father, strong features and long limbs.

It had taken him several years to realize that it was what he had long suspected.

Sloane and Irina, they had Rambaldi.

Jack had the Derevko family, had features he could see when he looked at Sydney, a real family that Laura had told him about through lies. Everything he had ever found out about them, he had memorized—birthdays and anniversaries, addresses and public records, birthmarks and family pets.

When Irina gave him the name, he knew who she was, had a file devoted just to her.

And of course, Irina knew he did.

It was impossibly frustrating, that all he knew about Sark was his height and weight, birthmarks and scars.

No history or public records, no mention of family members living or dead, nothing but a smirk and an assurance during the interrogation that Irina was a "mother" to him and that it was understandable that Jack had become so obsessed. He didn't have a birthday or a first name, had nothing, none of the certainty he felt when he tried to understand Irina's history, tried to piece it together.

He knew nothing about him before he had showed up in Tokyo, had nothing to fall back on.

So he could admit that he hated Sark on principle.

If he could have gotten away with it, he would have put him down now when he had the chance.

But he was infuriatingly useful as a bargaining chip— and it was a simple fact that, as Irina had chuckled over their last communication, it was the only reason Jack was receiving so much information, not just what he needed but what he wanted, why he was receiving everything he asked for as the weeks ticked by.

Because Jack was in a position where he could help her get what she wanted.

Decades, he had been loyal to the CIA—except for when Sydney was involved.

And this was no different, he decided finally, than any other time he had chosen Sydney over the CIA.

* * *

_When she had been young, Teresa had been spoiled enough to think she would get everything she wanted._

_It was an understandable belief for her to have._

_Between her aunt and her father, she'd had everything she had wanted for the first years of her life._

_But then her aunt had left with a last kiss against her forehead, gone somewhere else to handle work she hadn't understood then even as her father had worked hard to balance the power he wielded against the loyalty he had to her mother's private interests. She had been handed into the careful arms of nannies, waiting for her aunt to come back and her father to bring her gifts the way he always did after long trips._

_Then things had changed again, without warning._

_Her mother had swept into her life, a stunning woman with startlingly clear eyes and a hard mouth._

_Teresa wouldn't know or understand until years later the woman her mother really was._

_She had been just a child when her mother had spoiled her the way her aunt once had, taught her games and told her stories— and so she'd become fascinated with her real mother, the woman who had actually given birth to her. Besides, her father was there, always at her mother's side and it was perfect even though she missed her aunt terribly._

_Perfect until she'd understood what world it was that her mother had brought her into._

_The world her mother had dragged her own sister into— blood, death, and safety that came only from those who needed something from you, only when you were lucky or talented enough to be truly useful._

_She'd been confused, lost, until her aunt had come home, impossibly hard and silent, losses that were never spoken of darkening her eyes and leaving her warm smile cold. Teresa had realized it by then, that she was stuck, and so she'd never fought it, simply followed orders and clung even harder to her aunt in the moments she'd had with her, finding a bitter pleasure in the wedge it drove between them._

_Her aunt's arrival gave Teresa her only real amusement, her mother squirming with jealousy._

_It had been her life and she'd finally accepted it, that she would never have the life she'd wanted as a child._

_That she was stuck here, the weapon her aunt used to hurt her mother._

* * *

Teresa had gotten rusty after those two years she had spent in France.

That was the only explanation for waking up to a gun in her face, hard eyes that stared down at her.

It wasn't comforting, the realization that she was handling this much business while still so out of practice.

Rolling carefully, she crossed her arms across her belly, knowing better than to reach for the weapon hidden under her pillow, knowing she'd be dead before she could manage it. There was another moment of silence in the shadows, as she studied him, taking in what couldn't be noticed from the pictures. "You could have knocked."

"This was easier."

She doubted that but she said nothing.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know."

Jack Bristow didn't look impressed.

"I'll have to ask Irina to stop giving strange old men the directions to get past the guards and into my bedroom."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, gaze dark with annoyance, and she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment in exhaustion.

Irina was known for it, sacrificing her people to get others, but it was still irritated her.

"I'll ask you again—"

She opened her eyes, stared up at him unhappily. "If I knew, I'd already have her."

The look he gave her in response was intimidating but a childhood with Elena Derevko did not leave her easily bullied, allowed her to blow a breath out through her nose as she shifted upright in her bed, leaned her skull back against the headboard to meet his eyes when he spoke again.

"I traced our last communication."

"You could not have gotten into this house and past the guards without someone telling you how."

Teresa watched his face, saw the information flickering across it and saw the moment when something in him accepted it as he lowered his arm, looking steadier in his defeat than she would have thought possible. He still had the gun, yes, but she felt sure enough to push her covers off, slide out bed with a long sigh.

"I take it Irina told you who I was."

"Something along those lines," he acknowledged and she smiled, very slightly.

She was a gift horse, then, an offering from Irina to agent Bristow to do with what he would.

Which meant Irina wanted something.

She wondered if Irina knew…

Yes, of course she did.

Irina knew everything her family did, knew how to make everything benefit her.

"Is he alive?"

"Yes."

"Is he okay?"

"He wasn't trained to withstand torture," she bluntly informed him, pulling her robe off the side chair and sliding it on, standing long enough to tie it closed before sitting back again. "He hadn't told them anything, if you're curious—not that there was anything he could tell." She stopped, tilted her head to stare at him, knowing by the sudden tightness in his jaw that he understood the meaning beneath the words and wasn't amused. "Well… beyond the obvious, of course."

"I could take you to the CIA. Not quite as impressive as you were some years back but you're still a notable catch."

She just stared at him, smiling more broadly when he gave her a disgusted look, moving forward to take a seat in the chair where her robe had been resting, gun resting on one knee as he stared her down. He blended into the shadows in his dark colored clothes, moved with more grace than most men his age possessed.

It was ridiculous, to be reminded of her father at such a moment.

"Irina betrayed Sark."

"Like she betrayed you in India?"

Dimly, she decided that he looked unnerved, was amused by it even as she reached up to check that her robe was properly covering everything, even as she leaned forward to click on the lamp. In better light, she took him in again, a weathered face that had gotten stronger as he'd gotten older, still too comfortable in the field to sit on the sidelines.

Teresa had always been one for younger men but she could understand why Irina refused to eliminate him.

"You contacted me—"

"On Irina's orders," she finished.

"Where is she?"

"Trying to clean up a few other messes at the moment," she explained, drawing her gun out from under her pillow and passing it to him with what she knew was Irina's smile, pleased by the confused flicker in his eyes as he took it.

Teresa always had been one to cling to any amusement she could find in her life.

Her mother and her aunt, they had Rambaldi to live for, their obsessions.

Sark had Irina.

He was lucky, was still able to savor what he was given, Irina's brutal maternal care, sincere even in its viciousness.

Teresa had nothing, just the lies her father had once given her, the final gift she'd received the last time he'd seen her.

Gone, a life she'd never have again even if the current mess could be resolved, even if she went back to France.

"Does Tippin know anything?"

"Of course not," she muttered, annoyed somehow by the stupidity of the question and then irritated even further by the way he glanced at her, realizing she'd slipped and given him something to entertain himself with, Teresa Derevko as infuriated as a child. "I interrogated him myself when he was brought back."

He didn't look pleased and she was reminded of her aunt's orders, her aunt's request.

"Sydney?"

"She was moved by the time we got there." She waited for a moment, until the grief on his face was put away, waited until he looked up at her and asked silently his other question. "He doesn't know how the Project worked, knows only how they used the information in the tests." Off his hard look— "It's nothing they didn't already know."

Childish to be so desperately amused by his dirty glance, the anger in his face, but she didn't care.

He had taken a risk coming here alone, assuring her that whatever Irina had given him, it was impressive.

Stupid, to come alone—

Then she thought of her father, the things he had done for her, the people he had betrayed for her, and understood.

"You're sure about Sloane?"

When she simply stared back at him, he sat back in the chair, looking older than he was, looking overwhelmed as it sank in— she wondered how much her aunt had actually told him, how much she had dared to. He was not her father but there was an echo of him in this stocky man, a reflection that she wasn't quite sure what to do with.

No wonder her mother had been so furious at who her aunt had decided to use.

The last thing her mother would have ever wanted to deal with was another Alexander Khasinau.

* * *

_Teresa was always awake when Irina was on her way back from a mission._

_She was a normal sight among her father's men, the sharp-boned girl that no one dared to glance at too closely._

_They all knew what her already vicious father was capable of when it came to her._

_Teresa herself knew what her father was capable of when it came to her, had walked in on it once._

_Nobody bothered her as she rested in her father's own personal corner of the facility, legs folded under her and blanket thrown across her form, ears listening for the telltale sounds of Irina approaching even as she kept her eyes on the monitors lining the wall. At the table in front of the monitors, her father was reading, looking ridiculously gentle as he flipped slowly through 'Knight of the Lion.'_

_Fatherhood had softened the lines around his mouth, made it easy for others to believe him when he played the role._

_But her aunt said his eyes had darkened since she'd been born, that he was capable of things he'd never done before._

_Teresa believed her aunt._

_"I think you would like this."_

_She flicked her eyes away from the monitors, glanced at her father, found him holding his place in the book with a finger as he waved it at her in a vague way. "What?"_

_"It's a classic," he explained thoughtfully, thumbing the pages. "My mother always said to read the classics."_

_"She's not my mother, and she's dead anyway."_

_He smiled slightly, and she laid her head back in the chair again, eyes settling back on the screens._

_"Why don't you go to bed? I can wake you when she gets back."_

_"I'm already awake."_

_Her father made a face as he finally gave up on reading for the moment, pushed the bookmark in and set it aside, leaning back in his chair to set his feet on the desk. The sickeningly expensive desk, she elaborated to herself— her father had a weakness for material possessions, spoiled himself with his ability to have the best brought in no matter where they were._

_It was something that always drove her Spartan mother insane._

_He looked nothing like what he really was and it was awkward to her, her inability to match this man to her father, match this man with the too long limbs to the man who had only become more dangerous as he got older, who moved with grace nobody ever really expected. She knew she had it too, had long since given up on her hope that she would ever fully outgrow the angles she inherited from her father._

_It still irritated her, though._

_"Are you hungry?"_

_"No."_

_"Therese..."_

_But he stopped when he saw her straighten, dropping the blanket as she sat upright. Somehow, her father was on his feet faster than she was when he caught sight of the image on the monitor, his own eyes narrowing suspiciously as he moved past her out of the room. He reached behind him once as she rushed after him, touched a pistol but left it holstered, ignoring the orders being thrown around him as he took a sharp turn and rushed up the concrete stairs._

_By the time she got on the ground level, her aunt had managed to climb out of the truck even with the object wrapped in her arms, shifting her hold on the—_

_Teresa tripped over her own feet but caught herself, forced to job to keep up with his long legs._

_Then she got closer and realized that, no, she wasn't seeing things._

_"Where is he?" her father demanded, grabbing hold of her aunt's arm and yanking her forward hard, furious in his confusion as Teresa stood there and gaped at the image, her lithe aunt carefully holding a small body. "I told you to get him and bring him to me Irina—"_

_Teresa could count on one hand the number of times he had lost his temper with her aunt._

_Irina stood bruised and soot-covered, looking exhausted even as her face flushed in anger, even as she twisted her arm away from him and shoved him back in the same movement, other arm never loosening the grip she kept on the boy._

_He hadn't moved._

_Maybe he was dead._

_Her aunt spotted her then, a spark of genuine warmth filling her eyes as she gestured, face hardening when Teresa simply stared back in confusion, left dumb by the unexpected arrival. "Teresa!"_

_The tone broached no argument and Teresa stumbled forward on pure instinct, her arms falling open as the child was roughly shoved against her, leaving Teresa to grab him or let him fall to the ground. She just barely prevented the latter, nearly dropping him a second time in complete surprise when small arms looped around her neck in a chokehold, when a wet face suddenly smashed into the curve of her neck._

_"Uh…" she managed but neither of them paid attention to her._

_He smelled like smoke, she realized uneasily and glanced at her aunt again, bruised and soot-covered._

_"…house was on fire when we got there!" her aunt was raging. "His office was already destroyed and he was gone, no sign of him." Behind her, another man was pulling several cases out of the truck, completely unphased by the argument between his two superiors. "Someone tipped him off—"_

_"You had enough time to get him," her father snapped, jerking a thumb back at the boy._

_"Only because he had somehow made his way downstairs—" She stopped, glancing at the man waiting with the cases. "Take them to his office," she ordered, waiting until he had obeyed before turning back to Teresa's father, anger banked into something quieter, more savage. "I couldn't even get to the right area of the house," she grated out softly, small form easily intimidating his larger body into stillness. "He came running at me as I was trying to escape myself."_

_"Maybe we can use him as ransom," her father started slowly, eyes shifting to the boy curled tightly against his daughter but her aunt shook her head, lip curling in some emotion that Teresa found herself confused at._

_"He left the boy there, Alexander. Do you really think he'll hand himself over?"_

_Silence then and she watched her father process Irina's words, face darkening as he accepted it._

_"We have no use for him then."_

_"Not yet."_

_Her father grunted, casting Irina a sideways look before he stepped around Teresa, reaching out to seize hold of a small chin and tilt it back, grunting again when the boy jerked away and shoved his face back into Teresa's neck. "He looks nothing like Andrian," he said a long moment later as he stepped away, wiping his palm on his trousers. "Maybe you even got the wrong boy."_

_"He's inherited his mother's looks."_

_The silence this time was thicker and Teresa frowned at the look that crossed her father's face, eyes hard and jaw tight, something vicious in his gaze as he tossed a short glance at Irina. When she simply stared back coolly, unaffected, he curled his lip, shoulders locking up as he stiffened._

_Curious, Teresa waited, glancing between the two in interest._

_But then her father simply turned away, slowing only long enough to tell Irina to follow before he was gone, disappearing down concrete steps to whatever it was that was in the cases._

_It left Teresa to hold a boy awkwardly and wait for instructions from her aunt, now standing and staring at the small shape with that same confusing look on her face, a curious expression darkening her eyes._

_"Irina…"_

_"Take him to your room until I'm done speaking to your father," Irina finally stated quietly. "Clean him off if you can, feed him if he wants to eat, and then put him to sleep." She stopped, noticing the slight hysteria in her niece's gaze as her eyes softened. "He's an obedient child, and he'll do what you say." A last glance at the boy, voice lifting. "Won't you, Julian?"_

_Without raising his face from Teresa's neck, he nodded, lifting a leg to lock it more tightly around her hip._

_Her aunt turned and strode away, strong legs carrying her down the steps and to her father's office._

_Leaving Teresa to take care of the boy._

* * *

It was long past dawn, when Teresa set the breakfast on the tray, folded the carefully edited newspaper and put it by the glass of juice.

She hadn't slept anymore, knew there were heavy bags under her eyes.

But she didn't spare Bristow a thought as she watched her guard unlock the door and step back, locking the door behind her when she stepped in, muscles tense in preparation and tray held before her to use as a shield if he should try anything. He'd grown quickly out of his fear of her, retained a healthy respect that she was glad of— he wasn't trained to defend himself, wasn't in good shape even if he was, but he was smarter and more determined than she was comfortable with. The torture had made it easy to do her job, had made him dependent on her as he recovered but she knew better than to relax.

She found Tippin on the couch, looking too much like a child, slouched out and looking miserable.

"Did you sleep well?"

Stupid question, to judge by the heavy bags under his eyes, the shaky way he flipped through the channels.

He gave her a dirty look, a childish glance, and she chuckled, setting the tray down on the coffee table.

She'd worked hard to set him up in a comfortable room, spoiled him with everything she suspected he was missing with the loss of his own life. American soda and chips and over-processed meals that she unhappily cooked in a microwave that he insisted were better than her cooking.

All now stocked in the safe house for him along with other things he craved that she would never touch.

"Scrambled with a drizzle of maple syrup, sausage links on the side," she explained, holding the plastic ware up until he took it with another dirty look.

"How do you know how I like my eggs?"

Teresa simply looked at him, amused at the frightened twitch it caused in his jaw.

It always had been frighteningly easy, to disarm someone without trying.

"Are all of you born with that?" he muttered unhappily, snatching the plastic fork and pulling the tray possessively towards him, flinching when he stretched out his leg wrong.

"It's a trait," she admitted, straightening, arms folding across his chest.

"It's weird. Stop it."

"I apologize for my family."

He just gave her a glance, earlier anger dimmed but not gone, before lifting a piece of egg to his mouth.

She had gone in for Sydney and she had instead found him in a cell, bloodied but still refusing to talk, an impressive show of control for someone never trained to survive such interrogation. But she'd seen it before countless times, in those dedicated to her mother or her aunt, the devotion that would destroy them before anyone could break them, that had them offering themselves as sacrifices even knowing they would never be missed.

It was little wonder that the KGB had become so obsessed with her mother, had become so captivated by her, so willing to offer their own throats in order to keep her close to them.

Teresa wondered if Sydney had any idea how many people had already become obsessed with her, watched her.

She doubted it.

Teresa certainly hadn't realized it, when she had been that young.

It had been years since she'd been anyone's babysitter, and it was strange now, to take care of him.

Then she glanced at him, wounds healing but body still fragile, and sighed softly, weighing his importance to her aunt. Shaking her head to dislodge her thoughts, she simply stood and watched him pick mulishly through the food, nibbling to get nourishment but not looking satisfied as he did. "Drink your juice."

"Last time you drugged it."

"Would you rather I stabbed you with a syringe?"

He looked confused at that, unsure of what the correct answer was, and she smiled to herself.

If she had to take care of him, she might as well entertain herself as she did.

He decided to be a good boy, and started sipping the juice.

"You can leave."

"I'll be taking the tray with me."

"The guard could feed me."

"You would try to fight the guard."

A pause, a hesitation, his face losing some of its color as he set the glass back down, poked a sausage link.

She'd watched his first attempt in the monitor room, had watched him take down two guards by sheer willpower and luck before she surprised him. Before she'd greeted him in the hall with a smile and a dart and then dragged him back to the room herself, swearing in French at idiot guards that were overwhelmed by a mentally traumatized cripple.

He would try another escape attempt, of course, but it was more than that.

Teresa simply didn't trust the guards.

Things were too complicated, too dangerous, for her to trust any of them with this, with his care.

Hell, she was tempted to chain him in her own room, just to keep an extra eye on him.

But he was already fragile enough as it was, she knew, no matter how calm he seemed.

"You were late this morning."

She glanced down at him, found him watching her intensely, frowned at it.

He'd picked up too much from Irina's little girl, civilian or not.

"I burned your first eggs."

He didn't seem impressed by her blatant lie, chewed the sausage slowly.

With his mouth open.

He'd been doing such things the last few days, tasteless things that got under her skin, left her infuriated.

He was annoyingly aware of how much she was letting him get away with.

Sydney must have inherited many of Irina's qualities, for him to absorb such things in his time with her.

Teresa remembered Julian when he had been young, how he had absorbed everything around him like a sponge.

It was frustrating, to be reminded of that boy while playing babysitter to this man.

"Yes?"

"Nothing," he replied, drawing the other sausage link into his mouth.

The cloth of her sleeves was soft under her palms as she watched his hands, ready for him to throw the glass at her.

"I thought your name was Teresa."

"It is."

"Then who's Therese?"

She was more startled than she could deserve to be, spike of emotion causing her breath to catch at the name.

It had been two years, since she'd been called that.

And she'd gotten rusty, in those two years… that was why it felt the way it did.

"That was my father's name for me, once." She was proud of her voice, unwavering. "My name is Teresa, Mr. Tippin."

"Who gave you that name?"

She stared at him, Will Tippin who had somehow held out against her mother's torturers, who was as devastatingly loyal as any of the many people she'd seen take bullets for her mother. She could respect him for it, could admit that she understood why her aunt was hesitating in what to do with him, weighing his importance in the grand scheme of things.

But heart stinging at the memory of her father, she wanted to hurt him more than her mother had.

"How did it feel, fucking Allison while your Francie rotted?"

Something her mother would say, and she watched his face, watched him shove the plate away looking sickened.

He said nothing as she gathered up the tray, lifted it and turned away, listened to his quick breathing as she crossed to the door and heard the locks being disengaged. But she paused as it opened to flash a smile back at him, knowing that he picked up Sydney in her face the way Jack Bristow had seen her aunt.

Sometimes, rarely, this trait was useful.

"Lunch is going to be sandwiches," she informed him and left him to simmer quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

_Notes: I am currently and regrettably without my absolutely awesome beta - which was the cause of this wait as I obsessively went through this thing with my spellcheck and through reading and rereading it because it's the little things that get me. So any mistakes are mine and feel free to smack me for any you see._

-

**Two**

-

A lot had happened since Irina Derevko had created Laura.

It had taken Irina twenty years to understand the intricacies of it, what all had happened in those years.

In the decade that she had spent as Laura, soft-spoken Laura with her love of words, her sister had become impossibly powerful, manipulated herself through the KGB only to betray them, use them to her own ends the way they all knew she one day would. Irina had come home only to be given to the KGB as a sacrifice, spent another year of her life in a cell being questioned about things she had no awareness of before she'd simply… been released.

She'd walked away from her first child only to have her second taken from her, had spent years trying to unravel it all, put the pieces together so that she could understand it all.

When illumination finally came, it was in the form of a dead daughter and a fire.

The mockery in it all was almost too much, rubbed salt into the wounds.

In the aftermath, there was only the bitter fury of a betrayal that she had been foolishly sure there had been limits to, a knife in her back that had cut straight into her heart. _Karma_, she had decided as she opened the envelope and studied the picture, unfolded the letter and scanned through it with narrowed eyes and a tight jaw, an odd flutter of emotion in her chest.

Then Teresa was there one night with a bottle of wine and a silent apology, speaking the reality without hesitation, cementing what they had all known from early on— when it came down to the truth, Teresa would always choose Irina.

Elena had never been one to handle her jealousy well, became vicious when she was slighted.

But then, their family always had been too involved in emotional control for their own good.

"If I could talk to him—"

"Mr. Sloane is not available," she said flatly, annoyed at having to reply yet again.

"It's gibberish to me," the young man babbled in near hysteria, visibly paling as he pulled his arms around his middle and leaned back in his chair. It caused the chain attached to his wrist to jingle, made her grimace slightly as she turned away and took a deep breath, pressing fingertips to her temple absently.

By accident, she glanced upwards, found the woman staring down at her through the glass.

Small blessings, she decided unhappily, and moved for the door, stalking out when it opened and walking fast down the corridor to the stairs. The other woman came down a heartbeat before she reached them, brushing heavy red hair off a shoulder and smoothing a palm down her blazer, flashing Irina a smile of greeting.

It was always startling to look at the woman now and remember the young woman from so many years before.

She had grown into her natural talents, had survived her losses and bloomed through her hardship.

Now she played her role to perfection, wore her wedding rings proudly and even seemed to enjoy her work.

Still… "That hair looks laughable."

Raina just smiled slightly, as unruffled as always, bright eyes glittering in the harsh lights.

Irina could admit it— she was proud of this one, of how talented she was, at her ability to survive.

"I could shoot the son of a bitch."

Raina gave her a look, eyebrow lifted just a bit. "I thought you had a soft spot for Arvin Sloane."

"I thought he had intelligence," Irina retorted deprecatingly, staring down the corridor as they began to walk slowly, Raina's expensive heels clicking slowly against the tiles. Both of them hated this facility, preferred their own ways of doing their work, but they were stuck in these connections, were forced to adapt as the world shifted savagely beneath them. "Besides, Jack's the one who has a soft spot for him, not me. He puts up with his nonsense far more willingly than I do."

There was a long moment of silence, heavy and pained.

When Raina finally spoke, it was softly. "I heard about your daughter." After another moment— "A fire, really?"

Bitter smirk twisting her mouth, Irina nodded carefully, helplessly amused by Raina's disgusted snort.

The phone hooked to Raina's hip buzzed softly, a barely there hum, and they both stopped.

Ignoring the older woman, Raina unhooked it, flipped it open and greeted the other person with a slow smile and a little purr of "I thought you were working today" as they started walking again. There was a moment of silence and if Irina was anyone else, she would have thought she'd been forgotten, the way Raina grinned and put an extra little sway into her step as if her husband was right there with them instead of hundreds of miles away. "Of course, James…"

She nodded casually as Irina bit the inside of her cheek, laughter bubbling in her middle. "I'll be home soon."

It was another minute before Raina ended the call, snapped the phone shut.

Raina was a welcome distraction, was more of a sister than Elena had ever been, the old obsession that had connected them long since turned to true warmth after so much strain.

So she used what she was given.

"Well?"

"Don't take that tone with me," Raina muttered, tapping a nail against the phone.

"You could have told me about James before I turned myself in."

"And what, pray tell, would that have changed?"

It would have changed nothing in the long run, would only have added to the list of things she had to control.

The mental strain of yet another layer of this game would have made her sloppy.

So Irina ignored the question, waited until, with a grimace, Raina snapped open her handbag.

"It's the best she could do with the information at hand," Irina was told bitterly, Raina's expressive features twisting in an overwhelmingly familiar way as she pressed the small package into Irina's open palm. "If I could spare her, Toni would be here herself." The bag was snapped shut again, Raina shifting a hip as she tapped her fingers against the material. "But she's—"

"The best you have, I know."

Irina wondered how much trouble it would be to kidnap Flinkman— then dismissed it.

The poor little man would die of fright before she could even use him, she knew.

And Cummings was good, had handled quite a bit of the more complicated systems for her over the years.

It was the biggest reason Raina relied on her so much.

"She's unstable, Irina."

Irina hesitated, smothered down the immediate flicker of helpless agreement to the words.

"I trust Teresa."

"It doesn't change the fact that she's unstable." When Irina said nothing, simply gazed back coolly, she continued more intensely, unphased by the older woman's demeanor. "There was a reason you sent her away before you became involved in this little game with your daughter, we both know that. How many of her messes have you cleaned up?"

She thought of her baby niece, small and perfect, a chubby face that had looked up at her happily from the day she had been born, the day Alexander had insisted that Irina was her aunt and had a right to see the little girl. She understood it now, how he had used her natural devotion to her niece, but it still meant something, how much he had shared with her.

The woman that existed now was not the little girl that Irina had loved so desperately.

Raina was right.

It didn't matter.

Teresa was her only weapon against Elena— and the innate cruelty in that detail didn't make it any less true.

"You didn't just come here to deliver this."

"I'll be taking something back with me, wanted to handle it personally." Raina noted Irina's curious glance, the subtle way one eyebrow lifted in a question, and immediately spit out a few unkind words in her first language, old accent slipping forward in her irritation. "Not yet. They're still watching him."

Irina could admit it—that little fact surprised her.

Years spent hunting him, struggling to follow him whenever he was found through his attempts to secure new connections, running from the Security Service and the CIA, fleeing constantly from Elena's own private searches for him.

It was impressive, infuriating, that such a weak man could survive for so long.

Now it made Irina frown, stare hard at Raina as her fingers curled into her palms.

But Raina said nothing and with a suspicious twist in her chest, Irina dropped it.

Her daughters were missing, and Sloane had fled like a coward for reasons that she was shamefully uncertain about.

All she had were strenuous connections and unhappy suspicions, a stubborn husband she couldn't trust.

At this point, nothing would change anything.

-

_The world had become a haze of pain._

_A dull ache that had settled across his shoulders and tightness buried deep in his back, cooling blood sticky around his wrists from when he had tried to brace himself as the questioning continued. Blood in his mouth, his careful breaths sending jolts of pain through his jaw as the calm voice kept asking the same questions._

_The physical pain was excruciating but the other pain..._

_No more England, no chance of going back to his sanctuary, to the only connection he had left…_

_That pain he could barely tolerate._

_Khasinau knew it, of course._

_"Tell me," the stranger advised him quietly, leaning close to meet his gaze in the light. "And I can make it stop."_

_Legs cramped, he could just stare back as the muscles in his shoulders twitched in an attempt at a shrug, a vague helpless gesture that was all he could manage as he tried to keep his vision clear._

_There was nothing to say, no information, so it didn't matter at all._

_"We're wasting time with civility," Khasinau decided, reaching up to fiddle with a button on his shirt as he studied Julian with calculating eyes, stripping him open to find his weak spots. But then he shook his head slightly and turned away, trailing fingers across the table of tools as he frowned._

_Everything felt rushed around him, felt frantic, and Khasinau's suit was wrinkled, at least a day old, something he had only seen once since he had first met the man, something that offered a bitter validation of his earlier suspicion._

_Odd, confusing, that this was how Khasinau chose to torture non-existent information out of him._

_Dimly, he filed it away as he breathed, as spikes of pain ignited in the hollow spot in abused gums._

_"He's acting the way she used to. Did you train him?"_

_"I had nothing to do with him," Khasinau replied blandly, finally selecting a syringe already laid out and passing it to the man who spoke with a faint Russian accent, the man who leaned over Julian with observant eyes. "Give him another dose," he ordered as his mouth creased in annoyance, "and we'll start all over again."_

_Something bit into the skin of his arm, a momentary pinch that faded too quickly, flooded over by the pain in his shoulders as he tensed on instinct, as he closed his eyes and flexed chilly fingers._

_It was a freeing truth that there would be no more England even if he did somehow survive, that there would be no rescue because he was just a stray they had become fond of over the years, nothing more. But it didn't matter anyway, none of this mattered— he didn't know anything._

_It was surprising how amusing the thought was, the black humor it caused._

_Fingers curled into his jaw, twisted deep until a sound was torn out of him, until metal bit into his wrists and agony filled his back as he tried to brace himself. His head was tilted back, calculating eyes pinning him as he panted, blinked the spots out of his vision. "Tell me, Julian," Khasinau ordered quietly, "and I'll let you go."_

-

Sark rarely dreamed of the past.

There was no changing anything that had happened before one way or another, and the simple fact was, it had all worked together to make him who he was. He had come to understood it quickly after England, the knowledge sinking deep and settling, leaving him more sure than he ever had been before.

Why deny a part of yourself?

It made no sense to Sark; went against what he had experienced in his short but hectic life, what he had been taught.

So it was irksome to wake up yet again with phantom pain in his back, an ache in his mouth.

He fingered his jaw with a grimace, stretched slowly until everything eased again, finally sighed and relaxed again.

Understandable, he told himself the way he had since the dreams had started.

For all that most of his life had revolved around this world, he had still been luckier than most, had managed to avoid any long stretches in captivity without having some level of control, some kind of hold on someone else. Except once, and that incident had led to weeks of recovery and Irina working her hardest to strip away his weaknesses.

He was helpless, was forced to sit and wait and do nothing.

He could do it, was holding out well despite how they were trying to confuse him, antagonize him.

But he was beginning to dream about things he had long since accepted as a part of himself.

He took a breath and let it out, watched the red light of the camera out of the corner of his eyes.

He had managed to loosen up the muscles in his back when he heard the gate rising, frowned as he glanced around and found four men moving fast towards his cell in a way that made him sit up. But he went still again when the first man stared at him hard in warning, shaking his head slightly.

Sark stopped, lifting his hands in a casual sign of surrender.

The man just gave him a disgusted look, opening the door and leading the way into the cell, nodding as another man came forward with the now familiar gray suit. They allowed him to step into it, knowing better than to mock when he felt so unsteady about his own mental state. "Hands up," the man started to continue but Sark had already obeyed, staying still as the chains were finally connected, waist to wrist and ankle.

Unrestricted interrogation, he decided with a certainty that reassured him.

It had been a while since they had last tried it and those were the only times they'd come in like this before.

It all took less than a minute for him to be pulled out of bed and into chains, another minute of fast but intense checks before he was marched fast out of the cell, bodies jostling him down the corridor and beneath the gate, none of them looking at him as they walked him.

As fast as the trip went, he was still sweating by the time they reached the transport, was left admittedly annoyed when he was pulled to a stop and then jerked forward in what was a purely childish move on the part of his escorts. He stumbled fast up the steps and into the dimly lit van, sat down on the bench and kept his mouth shut as they told him what they told him every time— no speaking, no getting up when the van was in motion.

As if they cared about a bruise when he lost his balance.

And then they turned away like always, stepped out of the van without looking back.

Except for the first man who stared at him hard, eyes narrowed.

_Tell me, Julian, and I'll let you go._

Then the doors were swung shut, locked down, and he was left alone in chains.

-

Practically from birth, Elena Derevko was known for her obsession for control, her ability to manipulate to get it.

It was her defining trait, what connected others to her whether they liked it or not.

Irina, always smart, had understood it early on, had quickly submitted in a way that allowed her to be protected, even spoiled; she hadn't rebelled against it until her own power had guaranteed her ability to survive her older sister's wrath.

Alexander Khasinau had become obsessed with Elena's intensity from their first meeting when she had been a girl, had become infatuated with her drive, had managed through years of his own manipulation to twist himself under her skin just enough for her to need his defining trait, his composed demeanor and balanced attitude.

Alexander Khasinau never hid the fact that he enjoyed it, the attention she gave him while using him.

In return, Elena had given him a daughter she didn't want anyway, would have rid herself of without a second thought, gave birth to her, passed the child to him and went back to her obsessions. It was only years later, when realizing how taken Teresa was with Irina that she slid back into her daughter's life, pulled the girl into her arms and worked herself under her skin, made sure that an aunt was forgotten and a mother was firmly entrenched. Alexander stepped up when Elena dug too deep, showed more care than Elena was capable of even at her best, but it was attention and so it was permitted.

There were so many ways that a child could be used as a weapon.

Stuck between both, balanced only by her aunt slipping in and out of her life, Teresa Derevko was predictably unstable when it came to her emotions, justifiably unbalanced when it came to her self-control. As she got older, as her instability became more visible, her mood swings more volatile, not even her father or aunt could control her. And while they worked to control her, her mother went out of her way to taunt her, couldn't seem to help herself.

In the end, they were too much alike to stand one another.

It was only Julian who knew how to handle her mood swings, who heard the subtle change in a voice and knew how to react. Only he knew when to duck his head and back down, when to drop his eyes and go still, what to say to calm her down when he was sure she would listen to what he was saying.

The ability to submit without thinking less of himself was a learned talent, and it had been learned early, had helped him survive his first home and to thrive in his second. It was why Teresa went out of her way to keep him in her life despite how selfish it was, why she had remained in his life thoughtlessly even after Irina had given him England. It had driven her that day to dig a knife into her father's back with only a moment's hesitation. It was the knowledge that had forced her to do to him what her mother had done to her, to break him down into someone who would always need her.

Teresa wasn't proud of it, knew better than anyone what she had done.

And only a fool would think the need she had created went only one way.

Lucky that she was useful, that she had enough power to manipulate, that they needed her as badly as they did.

Besides, it would be fun to throw Julian into Tippin's face.

She could send Julian in with Tippin's breakfast one morning, to greet him with a pleasant 'how's life treating you?'

Certainly more fun than being used as a glorified babysitter.

Her aunt didn't agree when Teresa suggested it on pure impulse when they made contact.

"The job I gave you, Teresa, was simple— you find out what he told them, and then assist his recovery."

"Yes, I assist his recovery after I find out what he may have let slip."

"The only reason I am not handling his recovery myself, Teresa, is because I cannot devote the needed time."

"Why is he so important to you?" A beat of silence before she added, "You care about Bristow's friend this much?"

"My reasons are my own, Teresa—"

It was a sign of how annoyed her aunt was, the way she would begin snapping out names like orders.

"What about Sydney?"

"My daughter, Teresa, my concern—"

"I need more information, especially if you decide to send your husband to intimidate me again."

"Jack Bristow will do whatever he wants to do. I needed to see how far he would go without pulling the CIA in."

"By offering me up—"

"You are hardly the first to be used to test others, Teresa."

"And you are hardly the first person to use me."

Elena became volatile, explosive, when she was pushed.

Irina only became more controlled.

Teresa understood it, envied it.

When Irina's voice returned it was even, balanced, her aunt at her most enraged.

"You know there is no one to protect you, not beyond whatever guards you currently have with you—I killed your father when he pushed me too far and your mother will not risk her own power to protect you, not now." She knew her aunt's gaze had gone cold and found herself gripping the phone so tightly her fingers ached, knowing that look. "If your games cost me this, Teresa, you will be the first one I will track down when the dust settles."

_You are too dominant, Therese, to stomp your feet like a child._

She missed her father.

"I understand," she whispered without another thought and disconnected.

Her hands were shaking as she put the phone down.

-

The handcuffs were cool against his wrists.

Sark stretched out his fingers, flexed them, focusing past them at the sway of chains.

As he watched, the movement began to change, leaving him to observe more intently.

He wasn't wrong— the van was speeding up, at first subtle and then with a quick jolt of speed that his body braced itself for without thinking, pushing his feet against the floor. The next wrench, coming before he could catch his breath, arrived with a screech of tires and nearly took him off the bench, left him to curl fingers around the edge and hold himself steady.

It proved to be a useless endeavor as he was flung across the van like a doll, shoulder taking the brunt of the blow as he stole a breath in the second that he could, screech of tires like nails against a blackboard. The next second he was thrown the other way, arms locked tight to his chest to keep the chain from catching him wrong and snapping a wrist.

He'd seen it once, had no desire to suffer such an injury.

Muffled but distinctive past the gunshots, there was a blast— and the world twisted in answer, sent him to slam hard against the flickering florescent lights before tumbling down, body aching in some ways and numb in others, breath knocked out of him. He strained to listen as shouts in French penetrated the metal and a last shot rang out with finality close by.

He glanced to where the driver had been, where the shot had been fired, and blew out a breath through his nose.

It was an eternity as he lay sore in the dark before he heard the lock come undone, clank against metal.

Another shot and the sound of a heavy weight collapsing before, finally, the door were swung open, a hard face greeting him as he blinked to clear his vision. Older, staring hard at Sark with the gaze that he recognized as a key was thrown roughly at Sark, as he gestured violently in a clear order.

"With me!" he ordered in rough English, the French accent unmistakable. "Get out! Come with me!"

Only a matter of minutes from a cell to freedom.

It was, he could easily admit, impressive.

And so he didn't think, simply obeyed, twisting the cuffs open and staggering forward to pull himself up and out of the van, glancing down at the body as he stepped over it. The man who had given him orders in the cell, still looking startled as a pool of blood spread around him, as Sark was shoved towards another car as the man continued to issue orders in French.

Sark wondered what Teresa had promised the poor bastard.

-

_"Every fairy tale has a meaning."_

_Standing at the front of the auditorium, the professor gazed out at the class, giving the book in one hand a quick thump to draw their attention towards it. "And once they were far more complex than your average Disney fair."_

_Sydney waited, pen poised over the notebook as the professor dropped the book to the side and moved to the slide projector. "Let's take Little Red Riding Hood to begin with." The following click snapped up an image of an almost cartoonish wolf, slavering maw and wild eyes. "Little Red Riding Hood takes cakes to grandmother like a good little girl, sent by her mother, but talks to the big bad wolf on the way." Another click, and there was an illustration of the same creature leering over a little old woman in a bed. "He gets there first, eats the grandmother and then eats Little Red Riding Hood until the hunter—" Another click, and a big man with a an ax stood over an opened corpse, grateful little girl and grandmother clinging to one another, "—comes and splits the big bad wolf open and saves them both."_

_The professor stopped, staring past the rest of the students to smile dryly at Sydney, calm voice pitching perfectly over the quiet murmurs of the other people. "What do you think Red was taking to her grandmother?"_

_Sydney said nothing, pen gripped tight, and the professor nodded, turning back to her lesson._

_"In an earlier version, there is no savior. The big bad wolf wins."_

_A further glance towards Sydney before the professor looked away again, going back to the slide projector._

_"Before they wrote this story down, however, it was told as an oral tale, mother to daughter and father to son, passed along to teach lessons they didn't have slide projectors to illustrate." There was a click and a whir and another image snapped up, this time of a calmer looking Little Red Riding Hood with familiar features that made Sydney shift in her seat, unnerved. "In those tales, Red sees through the deceit and tricks the wolf, sneaks away and saves herself— sometimes after eating her grandmother's flesh, or drinking her grandmother's blood…" There was a pregnant pause. "Devouring her…"_

_Her mother hesitated for a moment, Irina Derevko finally offering Sydney a bittersweet smile in the dim light._

_"What do you think Little Red Riding Hood was taking to her grandmother, Sydney?"_

—and Sydney woke with a jolt that caused a flash of agony down her back, pushing down that pain as she jerked her head up, found an amused older man staring down at her from the end of her mattress, paternal smile creasing his mouth.

It had been several days since he'd sat in on her interrogations, and now here he was.

Her muscles tensed, hands folding into fists, but he clucked his tongue, wagged a finger at her.

"We both know who would win if you tried anything right now, Syd."

Syd.

He called her _Syd_.

"I can hurt you."

"I can hurt you worse," he retorted, and she let out a shuddering breath, forced herself to relax. "Good girl."

If she could have been sure she wouldn't miss, she would have spit at him.

As it was, she pulled her legs up, hooked an arm around them and favored him with the hardest look she could.

Knew by the grin she got in response that it was a useless endeavor— he was too aware of how helpless she was to be intimidated by some broken and half-starved spy, too aware of how powerful he clearly was to be frightened.

It made her hate him even more.

As she watched, he sighed and moved closer, pulling his jeans up a bit as he bent and then settled on the end of her mattress, eying her intently as he scratched the slight stubble on his cheek and then dropped his hands into his lap. When she still didn't say anything, he made a face and nodded to himself as if coming to some decision.

"You really don't know who I am." After a thoughtful heartbeat— "Well, I have gotten older."

There was another long moment as he sat there, looking relaxed enough that she almost attacked anyway, almost lunged at him except for the fact that she couldn't defend herself, was too weak and too battered to hurt a damn fly.

"I'm going to be turning fifty-six years old this year," he told her when she remained silent.

"What do you want from me?"

He glanced at her, the corner of his mouth twisting just a bit. "We broke his leg before we lost him."

Sydney was fragile, helpless, and she didn't know which was worse as she flexed chilled fingers.

He was just here to torment her, to get a laugh.

She could see it, his eyes darkening with amusement and his jaw tightening as if he was holding in laughter.

Sydney closed her eyes, tried not to think.

"I'm the only reason you aren't in worse shape than you are right now." She opened her eyes to find him sitting with his head tilted, eyes studying her intently. "Family doesn't mean anything to her," he informed her softly, and she swallowed, worked hard not to flinch, not to think about her suspicions. "I worry about you, sit in when I know it's going to be rough."

She couldn't reconcile it, the laughter in his eyes and the impossibly sincere-sounding concern in his voice.

The resemblance.

"Or maybe you just think asking me stupid questions is funny."

"You didn't eat dinner last night."

The verbal jumps made her head pound so she glared uselessly, glared harder when he chuckled quietly, slapped his palms against his knees and pushed himself to his feet. He scratched his cheek, drew a breath through his nose and sighed raggedly as he nudged her with a foot before heading for the door. "You have today off, Syd."

She didn't say anything, stared at the wall.

The door swung open and then closed, locked down, and she was alone, again.

It was bitterly hilarious that Bill Vaughn thought she was so stupid as to not recognize the resemblance.


End file.
